Mrs. Wickham smiled at him. “But no chills? I have not seen you shaking at all.”
“No chills,” Darcy agreed.
“I know a little rudimentary Latin—my father liked to teach me—I was his favorite. It has been of use, I think, in encouraging doctors to explain their mode of care to me at greater length and to recommend me to their patients—I dare say I could easily enough make a passable living in the profession. My father would be shocked if he knew.”
Mrs. Wickham wrung out the new bandages and placed them against his chest. The hot compress felt soothing, and the tense muscles relaxed. She wrapped the long bandage to fix it in place around the wound.
There was something terribly intimate in the way that she lifted him up and wrapped the white linen around his chest. Her hair brushed against his chest and against his cheek. Her scent filled his nostrils.
When Mrs. Wickham stepped away again, Darcy felt lightheaded.
He noticed that Georgiana had stopped playing to watch them, and he smiled at his sister. She looked down instead of replying.
Without asking if he’d like to try to feed himself, Mrs. Wickham then held out a spoonful of the broth.
It now tasted much better than it had this morning.
Despite his annoyance, Darcy let her feed him by spoon. He knew from this morning that making himself properly sit up to eat would be exquisitely painful.
“I shall serve as your nurse tonight,” Mrs. Wickham said. “I...was distracted while out, and I wholly forgot to make inquiries.”
“You do not need to,” Darcy replied.
She gave him another spoonful of broth and replied scornfully, “You would like to have your sister as your nurse—Miss Darcy, I mean no offence, but this is a serious wound. It should be under the care of someone with at least a little experience in such injuries. At least until after suppuration has begun.”
From Georgiana’s wide eyes, it was clear to Darcy that she had found the experience of changing his bandage the one time she made the attempt as unpleasant as he had. Darcy had been in a great deal of pain then, but he’d still done half of the wrapping himself.
Hehad been the one who had thought it would be better to wrap it tightly enough to keep the blood from flowing out, rather than the opposite.
When he’d eaten a substantial amount of the thin broth, Darcy asked Mrs. Wickham, “Why do you not despise me for killing your husband?”
The woman’s hands stilled.
She looked at her son.
He grinned at Mrs. Wickham, “See, I’ve been very good. I didn’t bother Mr. Darcy at all.”
“Of course not.” She laughed and ruffled her son’s hair. Mrs. Wickham then gave Darcy another spoonful.
A beautiful woman, that had struck him when she had first walked into the room.
She also had a strong will.
Quietly Darcy let her feed him the rest of the bowl.
He still felt dreadfully hungry when the bowl was empty, but there was also an edge of nausea. His fever was higher than it had been this morning, and despite the nap he felt deeply tired. He had not slept at all the nightbefore the duel, and the pain from his wound had only allowed him fitful snatches of rest last night.
Georgiana began to play again, and Mrs. Wickham complimented her on her excellence at the piano. Darcy closed his eyes. There was a childish shout from George. The girl, Emily, started crying. George went over to her, and said, “Emily is sad.”
Mrs. Wickham stood from where she had sat next to Darcy and went over to her daughter. After picking the girl up, and quieting her with bouncing, she asked Georgiana to play Robin Adair. Mrs. Wickham sang the accompaniment with a lovely soprano, while walking the child about.
“What made th’assembly shine? Robin Adair! What made the ball so fine? Robin was there. And when the play was o’er, what made my heart so sore? Ah! It was parting with Robin Adair.”
Darcy’s throat caught. He felt something indescribably painful, and a sense of the loss, and the crime, and the profound wrongness of taking a gun and shooting a man. Ending a human soul. And he remembered Wickham’s face, when they both were young, and when young Wickham followed him about as they played in the spring flowers. Splashing in the lake together.
The ducks, Wickham had liked to feed the ducks.
Damn you. If you had just deloped, or missed, or killed me, I would never have shot you.
